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Bid Review 13 acre lot Approx 6.5 mowable

03-17-2013, 01:38 PM

Hi there, I'm working on commercial bid for lawn maintenance of a 13 acre property with aprox 6.5 acre of mowable surface area. Customer has indicated that they do not want fertilizing, or weed control other then string trimming. They do not want power washing or anything else beyond the lawn care described below.

This is a complex with 25 apartment building buildings 6-8 apartments per building.

Each building has mulched beds that need a refresh, the beds are average of 4-6 feet in width I've calculated the mulch requirement at 140 yards; this number includes 15 additional yards to cover overages. Edging needs to be redone for all the beds on the property.

The client has requested that all the shrubs/tree's be pruned 3 times per season.

The would like the wooded borders along the outs side of the turf area maintained to prevent expansion.

We have two riding xmark mowers 60" & 52" & a 48" walk behind. With 3 man crew. For the weekly maintenance portion of this bid we are quoting the client (28 visits) $42,000 for the season. (we have 2 additional part time laborers for when we need extra hands.

For the Mulching and re-edgeing portion materials 8k, labor $5,250

For pruning 3 times per season $4250.

Fall Cleanup $4800

Debris removal $2500

Total price of the contract $66,800 tax is not included in this number. I usually break the contract into 8 payments but haven't had a contract of this size before should I continue that practice?

I rounded the numbers just to make the math easy. I know this is pretty vague but I'm looking for a little feed back. Please note that a 3 man crew will be maintaining this for the season but the mulch/ edging and pruning cleanup portions will be done by a 5 man team.

Few questions I'm pretty sure that my 3 man crew can handle this property in an 8 to 10hr day but considering that before this our largest property maintenance was 2 acre's with very little trimming I don not want to be over confident. I have talked to them about it and they feel they can handle it.

Looking for feed back on the pricing and additional items I could be missing.

Any suggestions for maintaining something like would be greatly appreciated.

Dont worry about breaking the price down as thats how they should pay you anyway. 8 monthly payments is standard! I only seen one shopping mall want weekly payments.

On the mulch it looks like your materials are high and labor low. It comes out to be about right. So I guess thats mark up on materials?

You might be on high on the fall clean up but I cant really see the trees to well. If there paying for you to mow into mid nov. Then the majority of time its all mulched and fall clean up is just the beds and nooks. We usually blows the beds out and mulch them the last few mows to make it easier.

You should be good with 3 men with 3 mowers. Sometimes its easier to have just 1 guy trim and the other 2 mow but even if you all mow then pick up trimmers it should take the same amount of time.

Comment

AS said before...I would let two guys take off on mowers while one starts trimming, when they get done mowing then they can work back until it's all done....

If your confident with your figures then go with it....This is an awesome account to land, I hope you get it and good luck....

Thank you everyone for your comments.

I did estimate Fall cleanup is a bit high, but that's because the beds are going to be difficult to deal with, was thinking about rolling the price of pruning into the into the lawn contract too.

I found about this one on a cold call to another complex. The place was already under contract but they didn't have a company for this one yet. I have an appointment to present the bid on Monday. Just working on last minute tweaks and making sure I have all my bases covered.

I do have some repair concerns that are not covered in this contract but I'm to get that as side work above and beyond the contract.

They also have some drainage issues I will point out and offer solutions too.

Any thoughts on offering discounts for a multi-year option say like 5% off for a 3 year contract?

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Offering small incentives to continue with you or sign a longer contract in the beginning is a good idea imho. But the deal is commercial properties like to accept new bids to try to get lower prices. Unless you have just given them an unreasonably low price or the last company shafted them.

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This is an awesome account to land, I hope you get it and good luck....

My presentation to the property manager was earlier today. I'm one of 5 bids being considered. I was not the low bid but I was complimented on considering the whole package and making sure everything was covered. Follow up will be this Friday. I think have a shot at it because the lower bids were not as thorough in their proposals.

I wanted to keep my foot in the door for the future so I dangled some solutions to a few other problems they need to address & they have agreed to let me bid those projects too.

I really couldn't ask for more, considering this was all from a cold call.

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On small contracts, I usually offer a 5% discount for payment in full up front or 3 year contract, in this situation I'm trying not only to get the business but position myself as a problem solver. Considering I'm a higher bid I think that's the best way to land the work.

Also offered to try and help reduce future costs by switching to lower maintenance plants & changing out mulch for rock where applicable.

I've also offered credits for referrals that have led to additional business in the past.

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Today is the big day, I have a meeting with the property manager & the owner. They agreed to do a walk through with me so I can explain the merits of my proposal and show them what I can do for them. Hopefully the snow isn't covering everything. Feels like a game day atmosphere, I've got some jitters, time to put my poker face on and nail this one down... May the force be with me LOL